Synchronize the primary and the backup indexer servers (FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint)

Article
07/22/2014

Applies to: FAST Search Server 2010

There are three situations where you must manually synchronize the backup indexer with the primary indexer to ensure that the primary indexer server and the backup indexer server have the same set of indexed items:

You have added a backup indexer to an existing FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint farm that contains indexed content.
You have detected that the backup indexer is out of sync with the primary indexer.
You have replaced an indexer server after a non-recoverable error.

To synchronize the primary indexer server and the backup indexer server in an index column

Stop crawling:
- If you are using the FAST Search Content SSA to crawl content, see Start, pause, resume, or stop a crawl (FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint) for information about stopping a crawl.
- If you are using the FAST Search Web crawler to crawl content, see Start, suspend, resume, or stop a crawl process (FAST Search Web crawler) for information about stopping a crawl.
Pause the Web Analyzer components. These components analyze links between items and search clickthrough logs. The components must be stopped to avoid partial updates for indexed items during the procedure.
1. On the administration server, open a FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint shell.
  1. Verify that you meet the following minimum requirements: You are a member of the FASTSearchAdministrators local group on the server where FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint is installed.
  2. On the Start menu, click All Programs.
  3. Click Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint.
  4. Click Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint shell.
2. Inspect the Web Analyzer schedule status. At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type the following command:
```
waadmin ShowStatus
```
  Note
  
  Refer to waadmin.exe reference if you are using multiple views for the Web Analyzer.
  
  In the Views section of the command output, for the default view, inspect the Schedule status. If the Schedule status is set to paused, perform the following steps:
  1. At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type the following command:
```
waadmin enqueueview
```
  2. Wait until the default Web Analyzer view is running. Type the command waadmin ShowStatus and inspect the Schedule status. The Schedule status shall be set to running.
3. At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type the following commands:
```
waadmin AbortProcessing
spreladmin AbortProcessing
```
Wait until all item processing is finished:

At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type the following command:
```
psctrl status
```
Note

All processor servers must report "idle" before you proceed to the next step.
Stop indexing. Perform the following steps on all indexer servers in the index column:
1. Open a FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint shell.
2. At the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type the following command:
```
nctrl stop indexer
```
Copy all FiXML files between the indexer servers in the index column.
- If you have replaced the primary indexer server, copy the FiXML files from the backup indexer server (source) to the primary indexer server (destination).
- For all other cases, copy files from the primary indexer server (source) to the backup indexer server (destination).
The FiXML files are stored in the following directory on the indexer servers:

<FASTSearchFolder>\data\data_fixml\

Where <FASTSearchFolder> is the path of the folder where you have installed FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint, for example C:\FASTSearch.
1. On the destination indexer server, create two temporary folders for the index data you shall copy. At the Windows command prompt, type the following commands:
```
mkdir <FASTSearchFolder>\data\data_fixml_new
mkdir <FASTSearchFolder>\data\ftStorage_new
```
2. On the destination indexer server, at the Windows command prompt, copy the data_fixml folder from the source server:
```
robocopy /E /MT:100 /NFL /COPYALL /LOG:\incoming\robocopy_fixml.log <source_path>\data\data_fixml <FASTSearchFolder>\data\data_fixml_new
copy <source_path>\data\ftStorage\processed_checkpoint.txt <FASTSearchFolder>\data\ftStorage_new
```
  Where <source_path> is the network path of the FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint installation folder on the source server.
  
  Note
  
  The /LOG: folder (\incoming) does not exist by default and you need to have write access to it to run the command.
3. Swap the copied folders (<FASTSearchFolder>\data_fixml_new and <FASTSearchFolder>\ftStorage_new) with the old folders (<FASTSearchFolder>\data\data_fixml and <FASTSearchFolder>\data\ftStorage) on the destination server.
On all indexer servers in the index column, at the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type the following command:
```
nctrl start indexer
```
On the administration server, at the Windows PowerShell command prompt, type the following commands to resume processing for the Web Analyzer components:
```
waadmin EnqueueView
spreladmin Enqueue
```
Start crawling:
- If you are using the FAST Search Content SSA to crawl content, see Start, pause, resume, or stop a crawl (FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint) for information about starting a crawl.
- If you are using the FAST Search Web crawler to crawl content, see Start, suspend, resume, or stop a crawl process (FAST Search Web crawler) for information about starting a crawl.

Synchronize the primary and the backup indexer servers (FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint)

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